February 28, 2008

Thanks for midterm feedback

I always appreciate candid responses to the midterm “discussion,” and this time is no exception.

I’m sorry about last-minute changes to Exhibition, and I’m glad I gave you a choice in the beginning. Sometimes an idea seems good but then just doesn’t work out that way. I think mainly we needed more time in the day as a whole. I enjoyed all the exhibitions – whether done early or late – and I did get to see them all, which was nice!

Once again, I’m reminded that we can’t “cover” every single topic we’d like in the depth we’d like. I have to remind myself over and over that even if we had 100 courses and could cover every possible thing professors could imagine to cover – it STILL wouldn’t be enough. That’s because the job evolves constantly and the subject matter is a moving target.

You asked that I give my opinion on commonly censored topics. I don’t want to do that in public (here, on the record) but will happily do so in person. Just ask me. I have confessions to make and some of my opinions may actually surprise you.

Here’s a reminder that faculty are on retreat this weekend. My experience with Sapelo has been that it’s so isolated that I’m doubting the supposed availability of internet services, and we’ll be busy all weekend anyway. So – I hope nothing comes up that can’t wait til Monday!

Finally, I promised to review the new editions of the Cataloging texts (EDIT 6380). I have finalized my choices as:

Kaplan, A., & Riedling, A. (2006). Catalog it! A guide to cataloging school library materials (2nd ed.). Worthington, OH: Linworth. ISBN 1-58683-197-6. Use the first edition only if you find it free somewhere – you will have to do some work to fill in a couple of new sections.